Up

First of all, Up (2009) is not a movie about a cranky old coot who, with the help of a roly-poly Boy Scout, finds his inner child during a series of magical adventures experienced from the front porch of a dilapidated manse held aloft by hundreds of helium-filled balloons. Such, of course, is the perception advanced by promotional materials, which sell short the latest Pixar picture and cant prepare you for the emotional punch of its first few minutes, when it presents the most heartfeltthe most sincerelove story in recent memory: the love between a boy and a girl, who become a man and a woman, who become a husband and a wife, who become a widower and a memory that haunts the rest of what follows. Rest assured, it gets funny. And thrilling, too, as the third act takes place almost entirely in the sky, atop a mammoth zeppelin piloted by a hero-turned-villain. But despite its title, Up is decidedly earthbound: The elderly Carl (voiced by Ed Asner) spends almost the entire movie schlepping his house across the South American landscape his wife had always hoped to visit. Joined by a young boy (Jordan Nagai) in need of company, too, Carls literally tethered to a memory, an anchor with a garden hose wrapped around his torso to keep his home from floating away. (PG) ROBERT WILONSKY